Just the Girl All the Boys Want To Dance With
by nicalyse
Summary: Sam is the only boyfriend she ever had who didn't disappoint her. Mike is the only friend she ever had who didn't expect her to be anything but just Quinn. She's not sure about what happens now that she's slept with one of them. Sam/Quinn/Mike. One-shot.


**A/N:** Just a reminder that this is a Sam/Quinn/Mike story.

* * *

><p>She wishes she'd gotten dressed in her own clothes before she came out here.<p>

She should have known he'd be home.

Quinn's sitting at the breakfast bar in Mike and Sam's apartment, her fingers toying with the corner of an envelope that's slipped away from the neat stack of mail at the end of the counter. Both boys are in the kitchen in front of her, Mike with his head in the refrigerator and Sam rummaging in the cabinet above the sink. Neither boy is wearing a shirt, which might not be as distracting as it is (it's certainly not out of the ordinary) if it wasn't for the circumstances.

"It's fine," he'd insisted before they came out here this morning, smiling through her protests. She didn't mean to smile back, but she couldn't help it when he looked at her like that.

That look was how she ended up in his bed in the first place.

She's wearing his tee shirt - the one he had on when she got here last night - and a pair of basketball shorts he produced when she refused to wear a pair of his boxers, even after he _insisted_ that they were clean.

Even after what they did, even though he's not only touched her body but been inside of her, it's just not right, wearing someone else's underwear. He chuckled when she said that, kissed the scowl from her lips, and pulled her back with him on the wreck of his bed. He kissed her throat and nipped at the skin of her collarbone, then put his lips against her ear and told her that she's cute when she's annoyed.

Him saying things just like that is why they ended up here in the first place.

She's swimming in fabric, his shirt too big and the shorts reaching down past her knees, but between the two of them in this room, she feels naked.

He's looking at her like he's mentally reliving something they did last night, a brightness in his eyes that makes her heart beat just a tiny bit faster.

The other boy is looking at her like he can see it written all over her face, exactly what she did last night. And this morning.

The jealousy in the room is palpable.

They're her best friends. Sam is the only boyfriend she ever had who didn't disappoint her. Mike is the only friend she ever had who didn't expect her to be anything but just Quinn. As it turns out, men are better friends than women. At least, they are when you stop trying to turn them into boyfriends and prom kings and surrogate fathers and just let them _be_ your friends. They're a trio, and they have been for the last few years, since they found themselves in the same city. It's always been so easy, the three of them together.

She's not sure about what happens now that she's slept with one of them.

Quinn's just sitting there, watching the two of them move around one another with the ease of two people who have spent a lot of time in the same small space together. Making coffee, preparing breakfast, and each sneaking glances at her while studiously ignoring the other.

It makes her an awful person, she's sure, but seeing them like this, the two of them engaged in this odd, silent dance gives her a little thrill.

(It's the thrill of being wanted by everyone.)

She knows that they both want her. They've told her as much, separately, and each within the last couple of months.

With Sam, it started in the elevator.

They were going up to her apartment one night after Sam had dragged her along with him to one of those poetry slams that she always pretends to hate. (She doesn't really hate them, even if she doesn't understand why Sam likes them so much.) He was leaning against the side of the elevator car, watching her as they went up floor by floor.

"What?" Quinn asked, exasperated. She'd caught him watching her when he was driving her here, too, and before, when they were listening to a guy speak in verse about candles and torches and fire, a not-too-clever metaphor for change.

Sam shook his head, grinning when the elevator door opened. "You're just really pretty, Quinn."

Quinn pressed her lips together to keep from smiling and looked down at her keys in her hand, shifting them as she walked until the key to her apartment was between her fingers. She could feel him when she slipped the key into the deadbolt, the heat of his body just behind hers. He murmured her name when she turned the key, making her close her eyes and take a breath.

She turned to him without opening the door, and even though she wasn't expecting it, she wasn't surprised when he kissed her, his lips warm and soft and dimly familiar, like the melody of a song she hadn't heard since she was young.

She got swept away in it, letting him kiss her without thinking about anything at all but how _good_ it felt until he took a step toward her, pressing her shoulders back against the unyielding wood of her door and snapping her back to the reality that Sam was her best friend.

You don't just kiss your best friend.

"Wait," she breathed, pulling away, pressing her skull back against the door and opening her eyes wide to look at him. "What are you doing?"

"I want to," he said, not answering her question at all.

She shook her head when he leaned down as if to kiss her again. "We're friends."

"I know," he said quietly, leaning his forehead against hers. "But-"

"No," she interrupted, trying to speak firmly even though her voice seemed caught somewhere in her chest. "We're friends, Sam."

He had left her there at her door with just a polite goodbye, though it was written on his face that he was disappointed with her answer.

Now, she's sitting in the kitchen that he shares with Mike, his sleep-mussed hair making her think of a little boy, even though his bare chest makes her think of anything but. Then she sees the way the muscles of Mike's back move when he reaches up into the cabinet for something, and she really can't decide what she wants to look at.

It's a bit of a problem.

He slides a mug of coffee across the breakfast bar to her with a smile, his fingers just brushing against hers when she takes it from him, absurdly reminding her of the way that he played with her fingers last night when they were just lying together. No sugar, a splash of milk. He didn't have to ask. She can't remember telling him how she takes her coffee, but then he always has paid more attention to the things going on around him than anything realized.

"Thank you," she says, wrapping her fingers around the mug and pulling it closer.

"You're welcome," he answers, leaning back against the opposite counter and eying her over the top of his own mug.

The other boy scowls.

With Mike, it was after a run.

The guys' apartment is right across from the park (though they live on the opposite side of the building and don't get the benefit of the view), and every couple of weeks, Quinn goes for a run with one of them. She went with Mike one Saturday. It was a perfect day for running; around sixty degrees, the blue sky filled with the puffy white clouds that look like bunnies and bow ties and frying pans, just as long as you tilt your head the right way. They took a longer trail, one that leads through a little stand of trees at the center of the park that Quinn would avoid if she was running alone, the path winding around a playground and a duck pond before looping back past the park's south entrance.

Mike is faster than Quinn, and that day, she'd told him not to hold back, to leave her behind if she couldn't keep up. It was a waste of effort though, because she could tell from his breathing that he was taking it easy for her sake, keeping a pace that was just slow enough for her to keep up and just fast enough that she felt like she was going to die.

She collapsed into the grass beside the trail when they got back to where they started, her forearms resting on her knees and her head hanging down while she tried to catch her breath and get her heart rate back to normal. "You suck," she managed, glaring up at him.

He smiled innocently, pulling his foot up behind him to stretch out his quad. Jerk.

It only took her a few minutes to get back to the point where she no longer felt like she was about to pass out, so she stood to do her own stretching, arching her back and twisting slightly first, letting out a little groan as her muscles released some of the tension that she'd been carrying all week.

"There's grass in your hair," Mike said, stepping close to pluck it from her bangs. He met her eyes when he dropped it, and she still can't explain why she had goosebumps in that moment. She felt overheated, her skin covered in sweat, but she would have sworn that she could feel every hair on her body standing on end.

"Thanks," she said softly, watching his eyes dart down to her lips when he nodded.

She knew he was going to kiss her before it happened, but she didn't stop it.

She didn't want to stop it.

She'd always wondered about Mike, starting back in high school when he was with Brittany, and then Tina, thinking that maybe if she'd just taken a chance on the smart, quiet guy, maybe her life wouldn't have gone the way it did. Maybe with him she could have had all of the good and none of the bad.

The kiss was very, very good.

She felt how much he wanted her in the press of his palm against the small of her back, even as he just sipped at her lips, like he was testing the waters before diving in and doing what he really wanted. His other hand rested on her shoulder, his thumb stroking the side of her neck slowly at the same time that he licked lightly along her bottom lip, making her gasp into his mouth and press her body closer to his.

It wasn't until another runner went by on the path, his feet scuffing against the dirt and dragging Quinn back into reality, that she pulled away. "Mike," she breathed, forcing her eyes open. "What-"

"You're so pretty, Quinn."

She made a noise that might have been disbelief, or maybe the beginning of a laugh. She didn't know for sure, but Mike shook his head quickly. His hand was still resting on her back.

"You're just..." He trailed off, watching her with something like helplessness in his eyes. His arms dropped to his sides. "I'm sorry."

"No. Don't apologize." She lowered her head when he leaned toward her, as if to kiss her again. "Mike."

He took a breath and was watching her closely when she looked up at him. "You thirsty?" he asked after a moment. "Let's go," he said when she nodded, falling into step beside her.

They didn't talk about it again.

The thing is, after they both admitted to wanting her, she couldn't stop thinking about it, about both of them. They're both so good, so right for her in different ways, that she knew that she could never choose. Because no matter who came out on top of a pro-con list or on the favorable side of a coin toss, she would always wonder about the _what if_ of the other.

Even this morning, when it appears that she has made a decision, she's wondering.

(It has to be wrong, wanting two men so much all at the same time, but she hasn't yet figured out how to turn off her emotions.)

Quinn sips her coffee, trying to discreetly smooth her hair, an effort to make it look less like she spent last night letting her best friend drive her to distraction with his hands and his mouth and his body. She hasn't looked in a mirror this morning, but she can only imagine how she looks. She saw, before she pulled his shirt over her head, that there was a little red mark on the curve of her breast from where he nipped at the skin. She wonders if there are any other marks like it anywhere else.

Her face feels warm just thinking about it.

She can feel him watching her, and if she looks at him now, she thinks she might say something that she doesn't want anyone else to hear. She watches the other boy prepare a protein shake instead; there's tension in his back while he measures out the powder and dumps it into the blender. She feels a little stab of guilt, knowing that she - this situation - is more than likely responsible for this tension.

It's not like she came over here last night planning for this to happen.

The plan was dinner and Netflix, a night that she's had with both of them - together and individually - more times than she can count. He chose Mexican food for dinner, and she chose _Rear Window_, and by the end of the movie she was curled up against him, her legs pulled up to her side and her head resting on his shoulder while she watched. His fingers were tracing nonsensical patterns on her leg, from the side of her knee down her calf to stutter over the bones of her ankle and then back up again.

"I like that one," he said, flicking off the television. She made a noise of agreement, nothing more than a hum. She was comfortable there with him, comfortable enough that she could have closed her eyes and fallen asleep sitting there beside him with his fingertips on her skin. He must have been able to tell, because he shrugged his shoulder a tiny bit beneath her head. "Don't fall asleep on me."

She tipped her head back to look up at him and blinked sleepily. "You wouldn't tell me no," she said quietly, and as soon as she did, she felt the shift between them.

"You're right," he agreed softly. He looked at her lips and took a little breath, and she didn't feel quite so tired any more. "Quinn."

She kissed him this time, curving her hand around the side of his neck to bring him closer to her, and once she was kissing him, she couldn't make herself stop. It wasn't a good idea, but she couldn't seem to convince herself that it was a bad one either, not when he was pulling her so she could straddle his thighs and slipping his hand into her hair, kissing her in a way that made her feel warm all over.

It was a little desperate, the way that he pushed his tongue into her mouth to stroke along hers, but she liked it. She liked it too much, she had decided, and she pulled back from him, putting her hands on his shoulders to keep him in place when he tried to kiss her again. "We shouldn't," she said.

The words lacked conviction, she realized when he smiled at her almost lazily, sliding the palm of his hand up her thigh beneath the fabric of her skirt. "Why?" he asked, using his free hand to push her hair back behind her ear.

She leaned into his touch without meaning to. "Because we're friends," she answered. It was a bullshit excuse, she knew, but it was all she could think of when his fingers trailed down the side of her neck.

He leaned forward to kiss her again, nipping at her lips. "You're cute when you're flustered," he murmured against her mouth, kissing her hard before she could reply.

The kitchen is too quiet when the blender shuts off. They don't always talk when they're together, the three of them, but this isn't the comfortable silence of friends. This silence is thick with the unspoken words, with jealousy and guilt and whatever this new, delicious thing is between them after what the two of them did last night.

Possibility, Quinn realizes when he pushes himself up to sit on the counter across the kitchen from her, smiling at her before he takes another drink of his coffee. Opening herself up to him means opening herself up to the possibility of being with him.

And there's that other thing, the thing that only she's feeling: The stupid, hopeless desire to have them both rather than being forced to choose between them.

But then the other boy turns, shake in hand, and looks at her. His lips are pressed together in a thin line, and she can see the wounded look in his eyes, and she hates that she put that look there.

She wishes that there was something that she could say to make all of this okay, to get them past this awkwardness, but she can't think of any words that will make it go away. Maybe there aren't any.

Quinn takes a slow breath and focuses her attention on her coffee instead of the two boys whose eyes are burning holes in her body.


End file.
